After i play a gig, friends usually ask me how it went. Some do it just for the sake of being polite. Others for being curious. I never quite know if i should stick with the short or long answer. And usually Murphy’s Law is at it’s best here, so whenever i retork a brief remark folks expect more and vice-versa.
Since i was back in Porto for the holidays I took the oportunity to play a gig on the second day of the 4th edition of Festival Matanças. So this time i decided to write a report about it. Incidently it seems to be quite hard to talk about a concert without contextualizing the festival it was part of so here goes.
Matanças means killings in portuguese. As in the act of slaughtering. The good folks of Soopa et al have been organizing this festival every year, always on the 22nd and 23rd of December, for the last 4 years. It usually features bands vaguely related to the carnal and raw. I actually digged up the original press release of the first edition, just do describe it more clearly: “The festival featured numerous bands from the local psychic-death, anarcho-satanic and contemporary-occult.” So, lots of shaman and pagan rituals, devil worshipping, pentagrams, red candles and altars with all things rotten and evil are always to be expected and present. The blinking xmas lights gives it a warm holiday spirit too.
The festival has always been free entrance, and takes place at casa viva. Casa Viva is a free thinking space in Porto, open to everything, opposing all opression, strongly anti-fascist, in favor of animal rights and veganism, you get the idea. Vegetarian food and beer are usuablly available for cheap prices. During the festival they make sure to have some specials related to the occasion. Nothing like a slice of the body of seitan to get your tummy in the satanist mood.
Day one consisted of 5 projects: T34, HOMO, COVA, TENDAGRUTA and HHY. T34 being a recurring project at Matanças, a 5 piece ensemble playing some re-vamped versions of old interventionist music. HOMO being one of the organizers, his set was a short noise burst fiddling with guitar pedals without a guitar. COVA played some electro idm / dubstep sounds. A short set that had enough loud bass to mess with the speakers system. TENDAGRUTA literally means cave tent, or tent cave, i guess it means to invocate an urban sense of living seccluded with yourself. They played some industrial noise sounds while wearing ski masks, a short set, included a laibach cover, hitting a metal barrel with a sledgehammer and such. HHY closed the night with lots of smoke from the smoke machine and some ethnic electronic loops. There were some other activities after the concerts but i had to leave early.
Managed to get a copy of Edições Côdea from Samuel Ufusus, a self-published book featuring rants and random lost poetry by artists active in the Portuguese experimental sound scene. Indie stands present at the festival included things from Let’s Go To War, Latrina do Chifrudo, Soopa, MMMNNNRRRG and large serigraphy prints. Should have taken some Enough Records physical releases to present there myself but slightly forgot to handle those logistics in due time.
The second day featured 6 more projects. AMP opened the hostilities with 7 minute sonic performance with a huge white strobe synced to the beats blinding everyone in the room. I was up next, playing as ps with some improv assistance by gmr of team kali.
Room was pitch dark with some smaller white strobes flashing. I was wearing my Pirate Bay hoodie, gmr was with his white rainbow satan ski mask on. Our set was a remodeled version of what i had played at Kuucvaals festival, gmr interveining with some noises and samples whenever he felt like it. The initial idea was to replace the metal banging parts with the use of some sound apps on the iPad, but the guys from TENDAGRUTA had left their metal junk lying around from the previous day, so i ended up also banging on the metal barrel all the same. The set was around 20 minutes. Started with some damp beats and sample soundscapes, shouting out loud to wake up. Claiming that our democracy is dead and that we are all living a lie. That we are the 99% and we have to get rid of it. Things die down a bit, psychedelic ambient builds up, gets shattered by a break-beat loop which is filtered up and down while a wall of field recordings, glitches and noise builds up into a massive torrent. Everything slowly quiets down back to psychedelic ambient. New beats slowly emerge, metal banging ensues with more shouting making sure people are awake. The techno industrial beats get more hectic and frantic, turning into idm and powernoize. Layers of ambient echo around in a long fade down.
Next up was BANANA METALÚRGICA, playing some folk / pop-off and ended up offering balloons and bananas to the crowd. It was odd. HELLCHARGE were up next, they played some rock / black metal / punk of sorts. BLACK PIGS played some freejazz mashed with electronics. And finally the room had to be cleared off to set the stage for PAIÃO AMANHÃ which performed an opera rock covering tracks from Carlos Paião in the key of grunge doom or something. It was quite a performance. Stage girls were holding up posters claiming for the return of our long lost hero. After a few tracks the vocalist finally emerged from the coffin in the center of the stage and started destroying the place, first throwing the coffin into the audience, then throwing himself into the drum set. The opera ended with offering of a bowl of wine and the resurrection of a teddy bear bunny. An opera rock indeed.
Couldn’t stay much longer after the concerts were done, so i packed up, gave my farewells to my friends in the Porto underground music scene and headed back home to indulge the holidays family rituals. Couple days later caught a plane back to Finland.
